


Deducing a Watson

by greyscalemuse



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A lot of vague speak, Gen, Harry likes to talk in circles, Implied Johnlock, Other, References to Alcohol, References to Drugs, References to Past Physical Abuse, Sherlock is having a hard time, no one is happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 09:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6849070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyscalemuse/pseuds/greyscalemuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Right before John's wedding, Sherlock gets an unexpected guest who fills in a lot of his missing knowledge about John - and he doesn't know if he really wanted it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deducing a Watson

**Author's Note:**

> So this. This little ficlet has a lot of loose thoughts in it. It's a big step away from the usual Joltolock porn you guys see from and a leap into the heart-shriveling angst that I write a lot of off this site. I may have tried to sneak in a few under the radar, but let's see if you guys pick up on them. Essentially, this is how I see Harry. There was going to be a lot more to it, but I trimmed it down before posting it on Tumblr. Maybe it's a one-shot. Maybe there will be more. Either way - meet my Harry Watson. I hope she makes sense.
> 
> No Beta. No Britpicking. I didn't even write this in a word processor. So just... jump in.

She was in his kitchen when he came home, poking about and humming over various projects he’d strewn across the kitchen table. This short, sturdy woman with a rounded nose and ashy blonde hair tossed back into a misshapen bun that looked too young for a woman of her age. She rolled her feet when she walked, favoring her left side even though she decisively held a glass tumbler with her right hand, and when she spun to face him, she stared with wide, blue eyes, prematurely aged by the dark circles residing underneath them.

“Mr. Holmes,” she barely slurred in a voice far softer than he had ever imagined, tossing her head back in a challenging stance before she nodded twice, “In the famous 221B Baker St. Though I’d never get this opportunity,” she gestured in a vague direction with her nearly empty glass, ice clacking against the sides in punctuation. “Landlady let me up. Pleasant woman. I helped myself to your liquor. Assumed you wouldn’t need it,” She took another look over him before she cocked her head to the side and grinned. “Rightly so, I think.”

Sherlock could only frown as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets, neglecting to remove his Belstaff for the time being. “Pleasure to finally meet you… Harriett,” he stressed the ‘t’s in a way that made her wrinkle her nose before she waved her free hand dismissively.

“Harry. Thanks.” She downed the rest of her drink but still clutched the glass between her fingers, staring down into the ice. “I’d ask you how you knew. But that’d be silly.” She gestured to herself in a flourish. “So? Deduce me. Dazzle me. Work your perceptive magic. See what you find.”

Sherlock’s eyes had been darting across her since the moment he saw her. When they finally stilled, he closed them and sucked in a breath to organize his thoughts on what he saw. The first thing weighing on his mind was the heaviest, and it dropped out of his mouth first before he had a chance to weigh it’s significance.

“You lean predominantly on your left leg habitually. I’m assuming from an old injury on your right… broken leg… dated around your pre-teens? Sports related?”

Harry crossed her arms and huffed a dry laugh before offering a humorous smile. “You don’t pull any punches do you… but fine. It’s what I asked for. Eleven years old, broken in two places and chipped my kneecap. Not sports related though. I fell down the stairs.”

“Tripping down the stairs would cause that much damage?”

“Never said I tripped.”

Sherlock grew quiet as he squinted a little, Harry’s declaration filling in the holes of his knowledge before he nodded slowly, clearing his throat and remaining quiet. Harry tilted her head.

“What? See something you didn’t like, detective?”

Sherlock fidgeted before he moved to occupy himself with shuffling his notes about on the dining table. “John mentioned you two never getting along.”

“You think John did it?”

“No. But he would blame himself,” Sherlock offered before he exhaled slowly. “Strong moral principle.”

Harry tossed her head back with a laugh before she nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. That is my brother. Always making things his fault. Even if they aren’t. Sometimes going out of his way to make it so it is.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because John’s the only one who wants to try to take responsibility for things. How he’s always been. Honestly, don’t know how he ended up that way. Unfortunately, in our house… taking responsibility meant taking blame… don’t know if he ever fully realized that they aren’t the same thing.” She shifted, hand falling to her right thigh and drumming her fingers on it. “He wanted to stop it. But he never could.”

“You made sure he couldn’t.”

“And where did you pick that up?”

Sherlock just shrugged before he pointed vaguely in her direction, “You said he never could, not that he never did. It was a shot in the dark, but seems I landed it, didn’t I?” Sherlock tilted his head. “When I first met John, he had your old phone. A half hearted gesture towards rekindling a connection, correct? You could get rid of a phone that made you think of your ex, and try to keep in touch with your brother. But there was a bit more to it than that, wasn’t there? You were trying to build up bridges you burned.”

Harry smiled and bowed her head, clearing her throat. “John’s my baby brother. Easiest way to make sure he stays put is to make sure he hates you enough not to follow.”

Sherlock swallowed and Harry pressed her lips together in a tight line. If she noticed his hesitation, she didn’t say, but that didn’t mean her words didn’t hit a sore spot in Sherlock’s chest. But bless her, she didn’t expose it. Instead, she just waited for him to speak. “How would you know?”

“You just knew,” she dropped her head and sucked in a breath and shrugged. “Sometimes you just know,” Harry exhaled and wiped at her eyes, before she lifted them to Sherlock, plastering a smile on her face. “Easy, really. When he was younger it could have been as simple as calling him a name or hiding a toy. Got older, he got stubborn. So I had to get clever. Couple of ill-timed remarks when he brought home a girl, maybe pepper it with a bit of outlandish flirting and he’d be out that door in a second. But the guilt? I could keep him out of the crossfire but I couldn’t wipe that guilty look off his face, no matter what I did. And that’s what finally did us in.”

Sherlock tapped his fingers across the tabletop before he cleared his throat. “You’ve been sober for… what? Six months? Why drink now?”

“I thought you were going to dazzle me.”

“Well I know it’s not because of John’s wedding.”

“No. That’d be just projecting.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Yeah, you do.”

There’s another pause before Sherlock sucks in a breath, laughing a bit on the exhale before shaking his head, “That’s not the point. Clara… right? Your ex-wife’s name? She’s in a serious relationship now. Correct?”

Harry snapped her fingers and nodded. “Did John get the wedding invite?”

“If he did, he didn’t mention it to me.”

“Of course he wouldn’t have. So how’d you guess?”

“One assumes that you aren’t upset by your brother getting married - you aren’t going by your own choice, not because he didn’t invite you, that I know for a fact. No. Your current state of intoxication is something that would upset you on a different level than choosing to not show up on your brother’s wedding day. And given your current state of dress and the fact that you are here to begin with suggests that you are not in any current relationship at the moment, so the relationship status of a past partner could be enough of a motive. One thing confuses me though - you left her, why would you be upset enough to throw away a decent run of sobriety?”

Harry smiled and pressed her palms back against the counter behind her. “You know that old metaphor of ships passing in the night?” She paused and waited for Sherlock to nod, “It doesn’t begin to describe it. Falling in love with someone who once loved you a bit too late? No… that’s something that I’d liken to standing at the top of a high building, looking down at the city sidewalk,” She swallowed a bit, her eyes going distant before she continued to speak, “And then you see that person. And you look at their face as they stare up at you and you see it. You think you see it, anyway. And you start to wonder, if it’s worth going down and seeing if you’re right. If they’re really looking at you the way you think they are…” Harry started to gesture with her hands, holding her left hand up a little bit above her head, looking up at it with fixation. “And then after some thought you think… the fastest way to find out is to jump. So you do. You take that leap.” Her hand swooped downwards as she whistled through her teeth, slapping her thigh before she looked back at Sherlock with another smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “And you hope you survive the landing. And if you do… you look up… and you realize… that they’re gone,” She shrugged her shoulders before loudly sniffing, tugging at her nose and averting her eyes. “Because while you were busy falling and landing and surviving… you took your eyes off them and they thought you were gone. All they saw was you jump. And they couldn’t stand to see you land. So… you’re alone. You survived the fall to be alone,” Her hands fidgeted nonsensically, patting at her thighs before she pushed herself up to her full height and brought her fingers to the back of her neck. “You think I could use your phone?”

Sherlock had to blink several times to register her request, but he nodded and offered it to her wordlessly. Harry took it and swiped across the screen, tilting her head before she went on to call a cab. As she ended the call, she handed the phone back, pressing her lips together and clearing her throat. “So. Who’s number are you trying to hide?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well… man like you… you’d only have so many contacts in your phone. If you’d need to hide a number, you’d have to do it under a current contact, but someone no one would necessarily need to call. Maybe someone you are familiar enough with where you would memorize a secondary number - just in case someone else needed to use your phone and you were otherwise incapacitated…”

“Why are you asking this?”

“Because there’s a text from John’s work number… kind of hard to manage with a landline.”

Sherlock cleared his throat before he looked away, Harry lifting her hands. “I would never judge.”

“Nothing to judge.”

Harry was silent for a long time before finally, she shrugged. “You wanna know the real reason I’m not going?”

“I don’t particularly care.”

“I’ll tell you anyway,” Harry sighed heavily, “I’ve seen John bring in girl after girl. Hell… I may have mended a few of the hearts he’s broken… not that I’m proud of that. But… point is… they’ve never lasted long,” She started to gather up her coat, keeping it draped in her arms. “So yeah, maybe it’s because John and I are crap siblings to one another and maybe it’s because it hurts enough to hear his disappointment and it’d be unbearable to see it. But in the end? I don’t think this is the right one. So… you let me know when it is. Right?”

Sherlock was startled when she looked straight at him and locked gazes, the slur temporarily lifting from her voice as it became stern and solid. He found himself struck dumb by her request and after a few minutes dragged by he finally floundered with a response. “How do you expect me to know?”

“Because you’re Sherlock Holmes. You’ll know.”

“I’m really not an expert at the matters of the heart.”

Harry snorted as she turned to the door. “Load of shit. I’ll go wait for my cab outside.”

“Wait… I have no idea why you are here.”

“Didn’t get that when you got a look at me the first time? Think. It’s obvious.”

“Do you always talk in riddles?”

“Only when I know the person I’m talking to is smarter than me. You know it all, Mr. Holmes. You got your answer. Just accept it.”

“I really hate riddles.”

“And I hate it when people act dumber than they are,” She turned on him one last time and looked up at his face. “You get it, you do. You landed. He’s lost in the crowd but you’re smart enough to find him. So stop wasting time. Do it. And good luck with your speech.”

“How’d you know about my speech?”

“Oh please. All of John’s friends hate him. Of course you’re the one giving the speech.”

Sherlock followed her down the stairs and to the door, unsure of what to say next, so all he could offer was. “I won’t tell him. That you were here. So don’t worry about that”

“He wouldn’t believe you if you did. I’ll tell you what you can do, though. Let yourself get it. Because you’re smart.”

Sherlock felt his heart clench and he dropped his eyes before he nodded slowly.

Because he did get it - and that’s what hurt.


End file.
